NATE SAT BEHIND the wheel of his truck like a hunter watching for game. Eyes narrowed, he stared at the road, noting each vehicle that came over the distant rise.
She had to come this way. Rayleen had called to say they’d tracked her down in Idaho and she was coming back. She’d be at the saloon that night, working the bar like normal.
Jesus, when he’d walked in the night before, he hadn’t been terrified yet, only worried. But then Old Rayleen had looked up with a vicious scowl and barked, “It’s about time. That little shit said you weren’t coming.”
“What? Who?”
“The piece of crap I talked to at the sheriff’s department. He said Jenny was an adult and I couldn’t report her missing.”
That was when his heart had dropped into his gut with the weight of a locomotive. She hadn’t answered her phone. She hadn’t called anyone. Jenny was gone and she’d never even pass through Jackson again.
But no. She was coming back. His heart was racing for no reason. She was fine.
He glanced down at the box on the seat next to him, then back up to the road, and his eye caught on a flash of yellow coming on fast. Of course it was coming on fast. It was Jenny Stone.
For the first time in twenty-four hours, he felt his mouth stretch into a smile. “Jesus, you idiot,” he muttered, thinking he meant Jenny and her speeding, but realizing that he meant himself.
She flew past with a whoosh and Nate shook his head and pulled around to follow her. “Unbelievable.” He didn’t catch up at sixty, so he hit the siren and pushed the pedal to the floor. This woman was…she was…fucking beautiful and maddening and alive and he couldn’t let her get away.
He couldn’t.
* * *
JENNY GLARED AT THE ROAD in front of her, watching for slippery patches and roaming elk and trying not to consider that she was taking a big step in her life. She was just driving home. She was just rushing to get into work. She needed to take a shower and dig out some clean clothes so she could get to the saloon on time, because she was determined to never be late again. It would take months to work off the embarrassment of having not shown up for a shift. Her stomach twisted with shame.
She’d been working since she was fifteen, and she’d never ditched a shift, or shown up drunk, and she’d definitely never behaved so badly that she’d been fired from her position of twenty years. “Focus,” she ordered herself, pissed off that she’d been thinking of her mom so often lately.
“Focus,” she said again, but the word ended in a wail of shock when she glanced over and saw a flash of blue-and-red lights in her side mirror. Then the cry of the siren caught up with her own wail until she shut her mouth with a snap.
Her eyes jumped down to the speedometer, but she’d already lifted her foot from the pedal, so she had no idea how fast she’d been driving.
Even she couldn’t understand half of the expletives that began flowing from her mouth, though she managed to repeat a few favorites several times.
Slowing, she pulled to the shoulder, then edged onto gravel out of fear of the semis that frequented this highway. By the time she stopped, her hands were slippery with sweat and she wiped them over and over on her jeans.
Please don’t let it be Nate. Please don’t let it be Nate.
She’d rather it be an unsympathetic stranger who’d throw her straight into jail than to have to face Nate like this. Cowardly and shamed and throwing all her promises about speeding back in his face one more time.
Jenny scrambled to open the glove compartment to grab her insurance information, but she crumpled it in her hand when she heard the thud of a closing car door. Tears clouded her eyes. She didn’t want to look. She couldn’t.
But she did. And when she saw Nate walking toward her, his sunglasses off, her tears dried as if they’d never formed. This was too horrifying for crying. All she could do was stare straight ahead as she rolled down her window. All she could do was wait for it to be over.
His body blocked the window. “Jenny,” he said. She didn’t look. “Hey.”
She shook her head and held up the insurance information. “I’m sorry,” she rasped.
He didn’t answer. She didn’t breathe.
“Damn it, Jenny, I don’t need that.”
Right. She dropped her hand and stared down at it. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that.”
When she finally tried to draw a breath, she couldn’t force it past the lump in her throat.
“Please look at me.”
No. She didn’t want to see his face. She didn’t want to see his eyes. Why did this have to be the one time he wasn’t wearing glasses?
“Please,” he said again, and she looked up. Just so he’d get this over with and let her go. She couldn’t bear it another—
“What’s that?” she asked, blinking in shock at the big red velvet box in his hands. Special handcuffs just for her? But it wasn’t just a box. He held it toward her and she saw that it was heart-shaped. “What are you doing?”
“It’s for you.”
“But why?”
“It’s Valentine’s Day.”
“It is?” But of course it was. The fourteenth. She’d lost track. Valentine’s Day.
“You don’t have to take it. I understand if you can’t. But I want you to know how sorry I am. And—”
“You?”
He flinched. “I was out of line. And when I came over, I wasn’t as up-front as I should have been. Then yesterday at the cabin… Shit, Jenny. Can you forgive me?”
She couldn’t process what he was saying and found herself simply staring up at him until his shoulders slumped.
“I get it. Maybe we could talk in a week or two.”
“No, I—”
He pushed the box past the window and she grabbed it automatically. “I understand. But the chocolate is yours. And this.” He presented a smaller box he’d tucked under his arm. “It’s for you, too. I’m really sorry.”
She took the smaller box, then watched in utter confusion as he walked back toward his vehicle. “Wait!” She let the box of chocolates slip to the floor of her car as she shoved open her door and scrambled out. “Nate!”
He paused near the flashing lights in the grill of his truck and watched her approach.
“I swear I didn’t know what Ellis was doing!” she said on a rush. “And I’m so, so sorry I got caught up in it, and your coworkers saw that. I was just following him. That’s all. I wanted to find out if—”
“Jenny!”
His exasperated voice snapped her thoughts in half. What did he want from her? His mouth was so tight and serious, his jaw working like a beating pulse. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“You don’t have to apologize,” he groaned as his hands closed over her shoulders. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I pulled you over because I needed to tell you that, and…”
“And what?” she asked softly, afraid if she spoke too loudly it wouldn’t be true. She’d realize she’d misheard him. He’d shake his head and change his mind.
His hands slipped slowly up her shoulders, to her neck, to cradle her jaw. “It’s Valentine’s Day, Jenny. And I wanted to tell you that this means something to me. You mean something. Even if you never want to see me again. You make me feel a little…lost. When you’re not around, I feel lost. But then when you touch me… God, when you touch me, I feel found again.”
“Oh,” she breathed, staring into his beautiful eyes until her vision blurred and she had to drop her head.
“Don’t cry. Please. Yell at me. Or tell me to go to hell. But don’t cry.”
“I’m sorry.” She sniffed, but the tears flowed harder when he kissed her forehead and wrapped his arms around her. Jenny buried her face against his neck, and the scent of his skin finally stopped her tears. The warm smell of him invaded her like a soul sneaking inside her own.
She wanted him. She didn’t want to give him up. He was part of her home now. “This means something to me, too,” she said into his skin. “It means something…good.”
He squeezed her harder, and whatever words he whispered beneath his breath, she couldn’t understand. Spanish, maybe, or—
“Ow.” Something poked her in the ribs and she pulled back to look at the box she still cradled. “What is this?”
He let her go and gestured to the box, then shifted back and put his hands on his hips.
For the first time since she’d met him, he looked genuinely nervous. He watched the box instead of watching her. Jenny, never one for savoring the process, tore open the beautiful silver wrapping paper and pried open the box. Inside was a card.
She flipped it open.
“It’s good for two sessions. At a racetrack. It’s over near Pinedale, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it. But you can take your Camaro there and go as fast as you want. But you have to promise to wear a helmet, okay?”
“Oh, Nate,” she said. “Oh, God.”
“Or if you don’t like that, I’ll get you something else. I was going to buy you flowers, but I didn’t know… You’re into cars. I didn’t know if—”
“Oh, God.” She was suddenly dizzy. A semi flew past, sucking the last of her equilibrium from her head. She had to touch him. To lean into him. This man who…understood her. Despite everything. After the shortest of time together, he got her. “It’s perfect, Nate. It’s so damn perfect, and I didn’t get you anything.”
“You got me you, Jenny. You came back. You were running, weren’t you? You were gone.”
“I don’t know. But I’m back.”
“That’s all I can ask for. That and maybe…a night this time? Instead of an hour?”
“Yes.”
How many Valentine’s Days had she spent behind the bar? How many lonely people had she watched hook up, not wanting to be alone on this stupid holiday everyone claimed for love? She’d seen it for so many years that the day had ceased to mean anything. But this year, for the first time, there’d be someone waiting just for her. In a home she’d finally chosen as her own.